Governor Gary Johnson Explains the Stupidity of the War on Drugs

The former governor of New Mexico explains why prohibition is a foolish idea. I couldn’t say it better myself.

I’m a bit of a stick-in-the-mud. I’ve never used drugs. I am very strict with my kids on the issue. But I’m not dumb enough to think that giving massive power to the government is a solution to anything – especially the non-problem of people wanting to do potentially dumb things to their own bodies. It didn’t work for booze in the 1920s, and it doesn’t work for drugs today.

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34 Responses

I agree that the government is ill-equipped at enforcing drug use, and that it is a huge waste of money, but as a non-user I cannot help but worry about safety issues.

I am not aware of any device that can measure the level of “highness” the way a breathalyzer can detect the degree of intoxication, so what is to stop drivers from smoking marijuana and hitting the highways?

I want to support lifting the restriction on drugs in the U.S. because I feel it is an unnecessary government sanction and the Constitution never explicitly outlaaws it, but too many people die from drunk drivers per year already.

Any one have any suggestions/reading material/thoughts on this that could persuade me otherwise?

I did some research last year at AU, and your comments buttress my findings – or rather, my findings would support your comments – with particular regard to your kids. Social institutions (family, religion, education) do a marvelous job of curbing drug use, but state institutions (police, prisons) do a horrific job.

Blood alcohol level measurements are arbitrary and cannot possible apply to everyone in any meaningful way. (One person may be severely impaired at 0.05, another unaffected at 0.12.) Because the BAC value doesn’t measure impairment, removing them from the equation is an idea that’s not far-fetched:

The only thing police will lose if drugs are legalized is an automatic ‘probable cause’ to search your vehicle if they ‘smell pot’ which has absolutely nothing to do with highway safety, and would be a major victory for privacy and freedom.

It’s patently unworkable for government to try and prohibit the consumption of certain substances, but – to address Kit’s question – perfectly reasonable for the government to forbid people from doing certain things (driving, handling firearms, voting, brain surgery) while consuming said substances.

Parental influcence and social pressures play the largest part in discouraging drug use, but addicts (or people under the influence) are not very good at evaluating risk and impulse control.

I also believe that economic incentives are the strongest ones. Since the ability to drive is very nearly a precondition of gainful employment in most places in the States, instant first-conviction loss of driving priveleges for driving under the influence might be a place to start. As would steep fines.

There would have to be a detox-and-counseling option for the truly addicted (as opposed to the guy who had a really bad day at work and drank one too many on the way home).

Also, personal experience taught me that regular drug use is not compatible with anything more than the most menial employment. I wanted to succeed and be upwardly mobile more than I wanted to get stoned and sit around blaming my poverty on The Man, so – after two or three hard lessons – I quit.

So, if employers were free to fire their drug-addled employees in the absence of a medical diagnosis of addiction, that would cut down on the recreational drug use as well.

I think it’s doable. One of the most powerful rhetorical arguments of the statists and elitists (when it comes to guns, drugs, homeschooling, activism, etc.) is that because some people screw up, freedom and public safety are mutually exclusive – but they’re not.

You have to punish the behavior and not try to prevent the behavior by banning the object. We’re smart enough to make that work.

Even if recreational drug use was legalized, there would always be a subset of drugs that require strong and forceful intervention. Meth users for example, tend to become psychotic while high. What percentage of currently illegal drugs could be decriminalized without hazarding the safety of the non-using public? What percentage of illegal drugs that actively harm the user could be decriminalized without hazarding the medical system? Are there any types of welfare restrictions for legal drug use?

I couldn’t have said it better myself – I have been trying to make the same argument for over 20 years – we failed so miserably with booze what makes us think we can succeed with drugs – has anybody done the math and figured out how much just a 5% cut in prevention, detention and incarceration would go towards funding UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE – go figure.

Think Hemp Prohibition ain’t wasting massive federal tax expenditures? Pot is everywhere, the black market big time. Cartels are international criminal syndicates like the last Prohibition, an expensive murderous failure. Hemp prohibition is criminal, it isn’t drug control, the underground and unregulated Black Market exposes school children to Pot together with very harmful drugs, Prohibition is harm CAUSING not harm reduction. Quit wasting billions of (hard earned), criminal tax expenditures wasting a third of all police work on harmful prohibition arrests, tying up jails courts (and fully half of those imprisoned are drug convictions, or parole recidivism from failing urinalisys),.Please, go catch the bad guys we will use a little temperance, and you’all go get the murderers, embezzlers and rapists law enforcment, let the potheads (and growers) out, and have room for actual CRIMINALS imprisonment.

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